Senegalese women inject themselves with glutathione to bleach skin

0
Skin Bleaching
Skin Bleaching

Senegalese women interested in bleaching their skin are no longer limiting themselves to cosmetic products, but are now injecting themselves with hydroquinone and glutathione, a product used in treatment of diseases such as Parkinson and Alzheimer.

Skin Bleaching
Skin Bleaching

However, if not used in the right quantities, the product can have devastating results on the user’s skin, health specialists told Xinhua.
The increased use of glutathione for skin bleaching has baffled health specialists who had already raised concern over use of toxic and cancer-causing lotions, soaps and creams.
However, while the anti-bleaching campaign has continued to gain momentum, companies involved in the sale of the bleaching products have equally enhanced their advertisement across major Senegalese cities.
“The phenomenon of bleaching through use of glutathione came from the U.S. where it was discovered that use of small doses of the product could lighten a dark skin within two to four years,” a Dakar dermatologist, Hadi Hakim, said.
“Some people in the U.S. decided to increase the dose to hasten their bleaching process,” he deplored, adding that “majority of the women who injected themselves with glutathione no longer have a skin.”
“Their skin has been removed in the same manner as a potato can be peeled off, a condition commonly referred to as Lyell syndrome, ” the dermatologist said.
According to Fatimata Ly, a dermatologist and president of the International Association for Information on Artificial Depigmentation, Lyell syndrome has a 25 percent mortality rate.
Hakim said patients who do not go to hospital in time always die at their homes, while majority of those who get a chance to be hospitalized die after 15 days.
“We used to have only one case of cancer of the skin within five years due to bleaching, but since the start of this year, we have received six cancer of the skin patients due to glutathione,” the dermatologist said.
Cheikh Tidiane Cisse, a gynaecological obstetrician, condemned the sale of such products in the country and urged authorities to set up a testing laboratory.
Citing the example of hydroquinone, the medical doctor said “the recommended standard is never respected because the required dosage should never have more than 2 percent of hydroquinone, but the product sold on the Senegalese market has over 6 percent content.”
Mame Thierno Dieng, a medical professor, urged the Senegalese state not to place economic interests through taxation above the health of its population.
Hakim equally regretted the “passivity of the Senegalese state which in 2012, legalized the sale of bleaching products which would be taxed at 10 percent.”
Head of the Health Comittee of Senegal’s Parliament Hawa Dia Thiam noted that the “fight should not just be focused on taxes because businessmen could skirt round them.”
“Things have gone beyond the law. We must stop the entry of these bleaching products,” she said.
Meanwhile, a number of Senegalese women continue to use the bleaching products, sometimes at a great risk to their lives, to get a lighter skin that is preferred by men, according to some women. Enditem

Source; Xinhua

Send your news stories to [email protected] Follow News Ghana on Google News

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here